


When the Sky Falls

by evilwriter37



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), Gen, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29968131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: Hiccup is shot down by a Flyer scout, and is too injured to be moved. Luckily, Toothless is there to protect him.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	When the Sky Falls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AHeartForStories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHeartForStories/gifts).



All Hiccup saw was the sky. All around him was blue, but the clouds were getting farther away, and wind whipped at his hair and his clothes. He’d been knocked off of Toothless’ back by a single Singetail Flyer, and there was no way he could get to him, as he’d been thrown far away from him. Toothless was trying his best to glide his way over to Hiccup. 

But he couldn’t. It all happened so fast. Hiccup fell into the cover of trees, landed  _ hard  _ on a branch. There was a snapping sound, and he couldn’t tell if it was the branch or himself. The impact flipped him over onto his stomach, and he hit the ground with a thud. 

“ _ Ughn… _ ” Hiccup couldn’t make an intelligent sound. Pain radiated through his body, originating from one spot in his back. Branches and leaves crackled as Toothless came down from the sky. He circled around Hiccup, nudged at him, and Hiccup tried pushing himself up on his arms, but he was too dazed to do so, and fell back down. 

“T-Toothless, watch out for the Flyer,” Hiccup groaned out. He couldn’t see what the man was doing, but he was sure he hadn’t just left.

A breaking of the canopy of trees, a shadow, and then the Flyer was landing. He sounded pleased with himself when he spoke: “Imagine me telling Krogan that I got the leader of the Dragon Riders all on my own.”

Hiccup lifted his head to look at the Flyer, but he could hardly see him through Toothless’ legs. His dragon was in front of him, tail swishing, teeth probably out, wings spread to make himself look bigger. A threatening growl rose from his chest. He was protecting him.

The Flyer’s pleased expression was wiped off his face as Toothless shot directly at him. Usually they would shoot close to the person, enough to singe and throw them off the dragon, but Toothless was angry that Hiccup had clearly been hurt, so he shot him squarely in the chest. He went flying with a yell, and did not get back up. 

The Singetail looked around, confused, unsure of what to do now that its master was off its back and no longer holding the chain. It looked around, then at Toothless. Hiccup’s friend was still making himself look big and threatening, and the Singetail didn’t seem to want to deal with that. It made a noise, threw off the chains, and then took off into the air. 

“Thanks, bud.” Hiccup’s voice was rife with pain. He’d never felt anything like this before. He was now sure that the snap he’d heard had been him and not the branch. Toothless turned to him, concern written all over his face. Hiccup got up on his arms, but that made pain wash over him, and he was back down on the ground. Something felt… off though, different from the pain. But that didn’t matter. He and Toothless had to leave, get back to the Edge and warn of Flyers in their territory. 

Hiccup pushed himself onto his arms again, trying to get through the pain, teeth gritted. That’s when he realized how wrong this felt. He flopped back down, panting, tears coming to his eyes. He was trying not to panic, but how couldn’t he?

“Toothless, I-I can’t feel my legs,” Hiccup sobbed. “I can’t feel my legs!” 

Toothless reared back in alarm, then began sniffing over the body parts in question. Hiccup turned his head and watched him nudge at his legs. He didn’t  _ feel  _ it though, didn’t feel it at all. 

“Oh gods, oh gods!” Hiccup cried, panicking. Toothless hurried over to his face, pressed his nose into his hair to try to calm him. Hiccup desperately grabbed at his face with one hand, needing something, someone, to anchor him. Hiccup sobbed against Toothless, the motion making pain flare up his spine and into his neck. But he couldn’t stop. How was he supposed to? 

Hiccup felt like the world was spinning, like he was going to fall off of it if he didn’t hang onto Toothless hard enough, and he didn’t want to fall again. Everything was crashing around him, his whole life shattering into pieces. It was like having woken up with one less leg, but worse,  _ so much worse. He couldn’t feel his legs.  _

Did that mean that it was permanent? That he was paralyzed? He tried his hardest to feel his legs, to  _ move  _ them, but his body wouldn’t listen to him. It was like his legs had been chopped off, like they weren’t there. Oh  _ gods _ , this was bad. This was so,  _ so  _ bad. He couldn’t move or  _ be  _ moved, and it was dangerous out here in the wild. Who knew what kind of animal could come upon him, whose territory he had crashed into? 

Hiccup didn’t know how long it took for him to come back to himself, for the panic to die down to a dull rushing. His heart pounded in his ears. He looked around, still hanging on desperately to Toothless. There was the body of the dead Flyer about 20 meters away. Past that was just underbrush and trees. It seemed calm for now. Either Hiccup’s crying had scared creatures away, or it had called them to him. He just had to wait a little longer to find out. He felt so grateful that he had Toothless here with him. 

Hiccup let go of him so that he would be able to react to any danger, but without him, he couldn’t hold himself up, so he fell back to the ground, breathing hard. 

“Toothless, stand guard, bud,” Hiccup said. “Don’t worry about me. Look out for any sign of trouble.”

Toothless let out a low rumble. He wasn’t happy about this. He wanted to stay within physical reach of his friend.

“Toothless, please. We have to wait till the Riders figure out we’re gone and come for us. It’ll be okay.  _ I’ll  _ be okay.” Hiccup was lying at that last part, but he had to say it, for Toothless. Toothless just gave him a long look, then moved away to stand guard. He kept his tail within reaching distance of Hiccup though, and Hiccup appreciated that. He laid his head down and closed his eyes, trying to drown out the pain.

  
  


Toothless kept his tail still so that Hiccup could grab at it if he needed anything, but he wanted to lash it back and forth in impatience. He wanted the Riders to be here  _ now  _ to help Hiccup. He couldn’t go get them though. That would leave Hiccup here on his own, completely defenseless. Toothless would never allow anything to happen to Hiccup, especially not if he could do something to fix it. It had already crossed a line, allowing Hiccup to fall and hurt himself. And if Toothless had interpreted him correctly, his legs were useless. It was Toothless’ fault. He should have gotten to him, should have been faster, should have been able to save him. But he’d hit that branch and there had been an audible snapping sound. And now he was on the ground defenseless, probably hurting in other places, but too aware of the pain in his back to care. 

So now, Toothless would do his absolute best to protect him till the Riders got here. He’d do better than that, because it was apparent to him that his best wasn’t enough. 

In a few minutes, Toothless heard a shuffling of undergrowth, a shifting of leaves. He got into a fighting crouch, teeth bared, staring at the source of the sound. But, there was nothing there. Toothless had of course happened upon this before. It was most likely a Changewing. 

Toothless roared loudly, lifting one leg, and that made the dragon show itself. It was a shimmering gold color, and was definitely a Changewing. It was a large male, and they’d probably entered his territory. Changewings usually hunted in packs, but maybe this one had split off to see what the trouble was. Toothless was overjoyed that it was just one. One was something he could handle. 

The Changewing took a firm stance, growled at him, and Toothless’ pupils slitted. He was  _ not  _ allowing this dragon anywhere near Hiccup. If he could save his shots and get the dragon to go away by pure intimidation, he would do it. What if he needed the 5 shots he had left for another danger? 

The Changewing tried getting around him, but Toothless jumped in the way, still guarding Hiccup. 

“You’ve got this, Toothless!” Hiccup encouraged. Toothless just lashed his tail, not looking back at Hiccup, because the instant he took his eyes off the Changewing, they were doomed. 

Toothless raised his wings, took a step forward, teeth bared. The dragon didn’t back off, raised his own wings in response, gave a growl. Toothless was not going to back down. He fired right at the dragon. He dodged, (Changewings were quick), and ran right at Toothless. Apparently he wasn’t going to try using his acid, was going for teeth and claws. Toothless leapt at the Changewing, meeting him halfway. They rolled around in the undergrowth, claws latching onto scales and flesh. Toothless roared, bit at the dragon’s shoulder. He would go for the kill, but he knew Hiccup wouldn’t want him to. Wounding the dragon was not something Toothless was above doing though, especially not when it came to protecting Hiccup. 

He wasn’t exactly sure where the Changewing got his claws into him, but he felt his razor sharp teeth in his neck. Instead of backing down, Toothless rolled them over so that he was on top, digging his claws in deeper. The Changewing shrieked, then opened his jaws to release a gout of acid, but Toothless fired right by his head, startling him and making him close his mouth. He wiggled under Toothless, apparently trying to get free. Wondering if he would run off, Toothless let go of him, blood dripping from his claws and teeth and the wound in his neck. 

The Changewing did exactly what Toothless wanted him to. He ran. 

“Good job, bud!” Hiccup whooped joyously. After that came a sound of pain, and Toothless turned to see him trying to somehow get up. Angered at this, knowing he was hurting himself, Toothless came back over and put a paw on Hiccup’s shoulders, gently pushing him back down. Hiccup gave no resistance, going back to the ground.

“Okay, okay, you’re right.” Hiccup heaved out a long breath, met Toothless’ gaze. “When do you think the Riders will get here?”

  
  


It took many hours for the Riders to realize that Hiccup and Toothless were missing. They were able to find the two of them though, probably from the smell of Toothless’ blood: Stormfly had a sharp nose. 

“Hiccup, oh my gods!” Fishlegs ran over the fastest, which was surprising given the length of his legs. “What happened?”

“Flyer scout,” Hiccup responded. He was tired as all Hel, and so was Toothless, but luckily nothing else had disturbed them since the Changewing. “Knocked me off Toothless. I… I think my back is broken.” That hurt to say, but the pain from the break was even worse. 

“Can you… can you move?” Fishlegs asked. 

Hiccup shook his head, tears in his eyes. He was relieved to have been found, but now what were they going to do? How was he to be flown back to the Edge? He couldn’t possibly sit on a dragon. 

The Riders gathered around Hiccup, looking all sorts of concerned. A lot of them wore empathetic, pained expressions. 

“We can lay him down on Hookfang,” Astrid suggested. “He’s big enough to carry two Riders. I’ll fly Toothless.”

Snotlout nodded his head in agreement, and Hiccup just took a deep breath. Moving him was going to  _ hurt _ . 

It took a few of them to carefully lift him so that he remained on his front. Hiccup cried out in pain with every jostling, every movement, and there were a cacophony of apologies. He sobbed in relief once he was laid down on Hookfang. The dragon rumbled, clearly unhappy by these circumstances, but he didn’t seem to mind carrying Hiccup. Snotlout climbed on behind, and Hiccup groaned as it moved him. He wrapped his arms around Hookfang, holding on as best as he could, but he knew Snotlout and the dragon wouldn’t let him fall. 

They took off, and Hiccup was happy to leave that spot in the forest behind. He’d suffered there for hours, alone save for Toothless, but now all his friends were with him. He was afraid of what was to come, but at least he had his friends.


End file.
